Jessica Estelle Huggins, a Boston Native, has been a resident of the city of Chicago since 2008. Immersed in the Columbia College Chicago artistic culture, Jessica dove into film exploring her many talents in writing, directing, editing and casting. Her true passion is creative producing.  She has a variety of creative material under her belt as she’s served in many different roles as producer, director, writer for several short films, music videos, web-series and a feature film in both Boston and Chicago. While attending Columbia, Jessica was asked by several of her professors to cast for a faculty film and two of Columbia's Advanced Practicum Productions. Straight after graduation, Jessica was hired to co-produce what became a film festival favorite short across North America in 2014, Perfect Day with UIC's famed theatre Professor, Derrick Sanders. The short was accepted into over 20 film festivals and has won 4 awards. Jessica has also developed a few series, most notably, Chi-Voices: A Poetic Film Series, where six Chicago poets creatively express their thoughts about youth violence in Chicagoland. Chi-Voices has currently been accepted into 6 international film festivals.   Jessica’s concentration during the fellowship year will be in Outreach and Research.